“It’s not only [about] the moment of the attack, it’s not only [about] the war, it’s about before and after,” Qandil told The Electronic Intifada podcast.

Qandil and Paq are the co-creators of Obliterated Families, a multimedia project that shares the stories of 10 families – through images, video and text – amongst dozens of families that Qandil and Paq visited over more than a year.

People were eager to share their experiences, Qandil said.

“Of course we were cautious with approaching families, and worried that we might be bringing more trauma, we might re-open wounds,” she explained, “but people really wanted to have someone listen to their story.”

Qandil said that one family recounted nearly a century of their “constant dispossession, constant struggle, attempts to rebuild and continue, and also [to] stay.”

Paq explained that they wanted “to show the diversity of cases and also in terms of location. We wanted to ensure that all of the Gaza Strip was represented, which makes a point – that all of the Gaza Strip was bombed during the 51 days of bombings,” she said.

“There was no place that was safe,” Paq added.

Anne Paq photographs a family. (Courtesy of Obliterated Families)

A member of the Activestills photography collective, Paq recently won the grand prize in the editorial documentary category of the International Photographer of the Year Awards for images that are central to the Obliterated Families project.

Early iterations of the project were published by The Electronic Intifada in January and July of 2015.

It has since grown into a comprehensive web documentary produced by Paq and Qandil, with the involvement of dozens of other media professionals, and is also available as a downloadable exhibition kit.